Great game deals to kick off the new year How about Halo 4 for $34.99? Or Far Cry 2 for $2.49 (with a $5 Amazon credit)? Those deals and more...

Welcome to my last post of 2012. Hope you all had a wonderful holiday, and I wish you the best as we head into what will hopefully be a saner, safer new year.Personally, I'm hoping to find a little more time for fun -- more books, more sports, and more gaming. Especially cheap gaming, which makes it even more fun in my book. Today I've rounded up some pretty spectacular game deals for consoles and PCs; take a look:1. While supplies last, Newegg...

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Samsung to sell first Tizen smartphone next year, report says Tizen is an alternative Linux-based operating system seen as a more open platform that will rival Google's Android and Apple's iOS.

Samsung at the Consumer Electronics Show.(Credit: Samsung)Samsung Electronics will be the first to sell a smartphone running on the Tizen operating system through Japanese carrier NTT Docomo and other partners next year, according to Japan's Daily Yomiuri.Samsung, NTT Docomo, and their partners hope to build a platform that will rival the major operating systems from Apple and Google. Other carriers interested in Tizen include the U.K.'s Vodaphone...

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HTC Said To Be Prepping Its New “M7″ Flagship Android Phone For A Q1 2013 Launch

Financially speaking, HTC hasn’t had the best track record this year. Even after promising to focus on hero devices in 2012, the company has had to deal with rough quarter after rough quarter. It seems that HTC is already working to make 2013 a bit brighter though — recent report from Focus Taiwan points out that the company is currently slaving away on its next flagship smartphone, tentatively named the “M7.”There’s very little known about the...

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Sony reveals 3.5-inch Xperia E single or dual-SIM Android phone, coming early next year

Sony has just announced the new Xperia E smartphone sporting a 3.5-inch HVGA 320 x 480 display and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean (though the specs indicate ICS), available with single or "Xperia Edual" mode SIMs. It's touting the new handset as a way to "stay on top of your data and battery usage," sporting special software that disables WiFi and data traffic when the screen has been asleep for more than a few minutes. With the dual-SIM option, you'll...

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The Gangnam Style Onslaught Continues With An Official Live Wallpaper For Android Devices

It’s been, what, five months since PSY’s Gangnam Style first made its YouTube debut? You’d think that Gangnam fever would’ve died out long ago, but it just keeps chugging along — the video recently beat some Justin Bieber garbage to become the most-watched thing on YouTube, and some expect it to hit 1 billion views in short order. If all that weren’t enough, there’s now an official Gangnam Style live wallpaper for Android-toting K-Pop fanatics...

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Google Maps On The Wii U Lets You Wander The World’s Streets With Your GamePad Beginning In January

While I’ve managed to resist the call of the Wii U so far, neat tricks with the GamePad like the newly-announced Google Maps app Street View integration have me sorely tempted. Nintendo announced today that Google Maps will be arriving on the Wii U gaming console in early 2013, delivering a unique Street View mode for the GamePad touchscreen controller that allows users to pan around various locations as they view satellite map imagery on their...

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Nokia Unveils Latest Windows Phone 8 Device: Lumia 620 Packs 3.8 Inch ClearBlack Display, NFC, Costs $249 (Before Taxes)

Marko Ahtisaari, Executive VP of Design, Nokia, has unveiled its latest Windows Phone 8 device: the Nokia Lumia 620. The product design chief was speaking at the LeWeb conference taking place this week in Paris.The phone is smaller (and cheaper) than other Windows Phone 8 Lumia devices — with a 3.8 inch screen, 1GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor and Nokia’s ClearBlack display to improve the viewing experience outdoors in bright sunlight. (Full...

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Samsung to ship more than 60M smartphones in Q4, says analyst The Korean smartphone maker could ship as many as 61.5 million smartphones, a 5 percent gain from the prior quarter, says a UBS analyst.

Samsung should enjoy a profitable quarter if one analyst's smartphone projections are on the money.The company is expected to ship 61.5 million smartphones in the fourth quarter, said UBS analyst Nicolas Gaudois, as reported by the Yonhap News agency. That number would prove a 5 percent gain over the 58 million estimated shipments for the third quarter.And the figure could grow as high as 63 million, the analyst forecast, depending on how many...

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Facebook hopes new Messenger app will outpace SMS The big social network is angling to replace text messaging with a new Facebook Messaging service requires a phone number but no Facebook account.

PARIS -- Facebook revamped its Facebook Messenger service today in an attempt to get people to dump mobile-phone text messaging in favor of something more sophisticated.Facebook Messenger today is essentially an instant-messaging network, complete with separate apps to use the service. But with the new incarnation, people need only a phone number, and no Facebook account, said Peter Deng, Facebook's director of communications product management,...

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Verizon's Motorola Droid RAZR HD and RAZR MAXX HD Getting Android 4.12 Upgrades this Week

When the Motorola Droid RAZR HD and Droid RAZR MAXX HD came out this fall, they debuted running Android 4.0, an out-dated version of Google's operating system. These two Verizon smartphones will soon be receiving upgrades, though not to to latest version of Android. Motorola's newest will be getting upgrades to Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean), which is about a year old. Version 4.2 debuted this summer. Still, few devices from any company are running this...

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Zapstreak Goes Global With Public SDK Launch For Its AirPlay For Android Solution

Poznan, Poland-based startup Zapstreak has just brought its AirPlay-style media streaming solution for Android out of beta, making the SDK it provides available to developers worldwide after a six-month extended testing period. The company’s tech allows Android developers to build music, video or picture-streaming right into their app. Because the tech is built on the DLNA standard, it doesn’t require devs to worry about additional hardware capabilities...

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Apple Will Reportedly Start Selling Unlocked iPhones As Early As Tonight In The U.S.

Apple has yet to release the unlocked iPhone 5 in the U.S., even though early on they let images leak depicting pricing of that device on its website. Now a new report from 9t05Mac claims that the company will start selling unlocked iPhones as early as tonight via its online store, with physical retail availability coming shortly thereafter. As we reported at launch, unlocked pricing for the iPhones will be $649, $749 and $849 respectively for...

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HTC Won’t Sell The Entry-Level Windows Phone 8S Smartphone In The U.S.

The HTC 8S is a Windows Phone 8 handset that’s lightly specced compared to its more powerful sibling, the HTC 8X. The 8X is HTC’s flagship phone based on Microsoft’s mobile OS, and apparently the only one the U.S. market may ever see, according to an official statement from HTC issued late Friday afternoon. The budget 8S won’t make it to U.S. shores, an HTC official told Engadget, which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.The HTC 8S is a not a...

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Apple Gains On Samsung In U.S. Mobile Phone Market Share, Lands Second Overall For The First Time

For the first time in the history of comScore’s MobiLens U.S. mobile market share report, Apple has come in second overall among handset OEMs. Apple grew its U.S. market share by 1.5 percentage points from 16.3 to 17.8 percent in the three-month period ending October 2012, according to the report. During the same period, Samsung also saw its share grow, but only by 0.7 percentage points, from 25.6 to 26.3 percent. Apple seems to have begun narrowing...

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A First Look At The 2012 21.5-inch iMac, And How It Compares To Generations Past

The new iMac all-in-one desktop computer from Apple goes on sale today, and it includes a significant hardware redesign. Apple has cut bulk and thinned out the edges with a tapered design that is only 5 mm thick at the edge. Leaving aside what’s new under the hood, the case itself is impressive enough that it merits a good look. Here’s what the new 21.5-inch version of the iMac looks like, and how it stacks up to other Apple hardware, past and...

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NeoMedia sues SpyderLynx as scanning figures rise

Rating: W7 Mango users bottom of scanning listAs mobile barcode scanning expert, NeoMedia Technologies, announced its performance figures for Q1 2012, the company also let slip that it had started another law suit over its patent portfolio. This time the supplier on the wrong end of NeoMedia’s lawyers is SpyderLynx. That’s interesting because SpyderLynx itself is trying to patent the use of embedding a log into a QR code. See our previous story here. For the lawyers amongst our readership, we decided to publish NeoMedia’s Press release on the who...

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Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Coming to Select HTC One Handsets, Confirmed

Today HTC confirmed rumors that Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) will definitely be coming to several of the handsets in the manufacturer's One series."We know HTC fans are excited to get their hands on Google's latest version of Android," HTC said in a statement. "At this point in time, we can confirm that we have plans to upgrade our HTC One X, HTC One XL and HTC One S to Jelly Bean."Besides confirming an impending roll out of Google's latest operating...

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Nokia Survivors Give MeeGo Another Go

Americans who have been cut loose from their jobs have likely never experienced a layoff like they do in Finland. Nokia, which is consolidating its workforce as it shrinks in scope, has been extremely generous in letting people go, even to the point of helping set up a competitor.Nokia often tried to help furloughed employees find their next job, and in some cases, people went straight to a new job without any interruption. The thousands of Symbian...

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HTC Droid DNA Launches from Verizon

Today, Verizon has begun offering its new high-end smartphone, the HTC Droid DNA. The new handset is available exclusively from Big Red. The Droid DNA is most known for its incredible smartphone. The device offers a 5-inch display with a 1920 x 1080 (1080p) resolution, putting it at 440ppi which is the highest pixel density seen to date. The screen itself is comprised of Super LCD 3 Corning display with a protective Gorilla Glass 2 coating. Besides...

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Inside Source Says Windows Phone 8 To Be Launched In November

Coming shortly after Microsoft's announcement that Windows 8 will be available to the general public on October 26, rumors have now begun to surface that the next version of the company's mobile OS, Windows Phone 8, will be available on its first wave of devices sometime in November. An inside source informed ZDnet's Mary Jo Foley about WP8 being made available to the general public in November, along with a number of other supposed general availability...

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Palm-sized Star Trek tech may be closer than you think

In the Star Trek universe, the tricorder is a handheld device used by Kirk, Spock, and various red-shirted crew members to make detailed scans of unfamiliar planets and even less familiar life-forms. It can be used in sick bay to diagnose intergalactic patients, and in engineering to find which part of the warp core is missing.One small device that can do all that must be total science-fiction, right? Well thanks to recent advances in x-ray technology,...

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Amazon's mobile ambitions grow

By Alistair BarrSAN FRANCISCO | Mon Jul 23, 2012 7:02am EDT(Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) plans to expand its mobile platform and broaden its offering of devices beyond e-readers and the Kindle Fire tablet, analysts, developers and retail partners said ahead of results next week from the world's largest Internet retailer.Amazon is to introduce up to five or six tablet SKUs, or stock-keeping units, according Demos Parneros, president of U.S. Retail for Staples Inc (SPLS.O), which sells the Fire.The tablets will be different sizes, including...

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Apple heads into choppy waters as new iPhone awaited

A man shows a photograph he took on his iPhone of an Apple store in Beijing June 6, 2012.Credit: Reuters/David GrayBy Poornima GuptaSAN FRANCISCO | Mon Jul 23, 2012 7:06am EDTSAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc faces an unusual phenomenon when reporting earnings this time around: low expectations.Few are expecting the world's most valuable technology company -- which surpasses Wall Street expectations with near regularity -- to deliver a bumper...

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Nokia Has 'Something Amazing' on the Way in September

Nokia's partnership with Microsoft may not have produced any resounding success yet, but it appears that the Finnish company may still have something up its sleeve. Come September 7, Nokia promises to unveil something "amazing" to its customers.Photos of a sign outside a currently-closed Nokia store in Helsinki have surfaced on MyNokiaBlog, telling customers "Something amazing is coming," with the September 7 date next to it. There is also a QR...

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Samsung Galaxy S III Sales Break 10 Million

Maybe Samsung is right and the next big thing really is here: sales of the company's Galaxy S III smartphone have officially broken 10 million units. Though he was unable to provide specific numbers, the head of Samsung's information technology and mobile communication division, Shin Jong-Kyun, told the Yonhap News Agency that the company has moved more than 10 million Galaxy S III units since its initial launch in the EU and Middle East at the...

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